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Article by founder of Bug Labs saying that
<a href="http://www.thestreet.com/story/11995288/1/the-digital-skeptic-it-turns-out-hardware-as-a-business-is-hard.html">hardware is hard</a>.
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<em>...the firm had its first WTF moment: Bug Labs could not find vendors for even basic parts, including critical Wi-Fi chips.</em>
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<em>"It was like being a software coder and being unable to buy if/then statements," he said. </em>
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That seems to validate Stallman's reasoning on the maker's side, and he even doubts that 3D printing will be the answer:
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<em>"These tools are cool. We use them. But what you learn is, 3-D printers will never replace manufacturing basics like injection-mold plastics, rapid metal-fab and mass-produced computer chips,"</em>
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Yet plenty of existing technological feats were at one time considered impossible because people, even good inventors, couldn't see a way forward based on that era's understanding.
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So instead of accepting 'never', if we take it as a challenge and try to find every way possible it'll make it far more likely that we'll actually solve the way forward.
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Marino Hernandez
<br />(just a founder of
<a href="http://www.marketply.org">Marketply</a>)
<br />203-429-4205
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<blockquote style="position: relative; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 10px; border-left: solid 1px blue;" type="cite">
On November 24, 2013 at 5:53 PM Matt Maier <blueback09@gmail.com> wrote:
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This is the only thing I can find that's recent and it implies that his perspective hasn't changed in 10 years.
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<a href="http://www.processmakerblog.com/uncategorized/the-processmaker-developers-meet-with-richard-stallman/">http://www.processmakerblog.com/uncategorized/the-processmaker-developers-meet-with-richard-stallman/</a>
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"
<em><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.390625px;">All in all, the conversation was very interesting for all involved, but Stallman was pressed to keep up with his email, so he pulled out his famous </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.lemote.com/english/yeeloong.html">Lemote Yeeloong</a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.390625px;"> laptop, a small-screen portable whose entire specs and firmware code are available for free download on the internet. The appearance of the legendary device provoked a rumination about what this new type of hardware should be termed. Reacting to our use of the term “free hardware”, Stallman observed that it wasn’t really “free” in the same way as software since only companies with access to sophisticated equipment have the ability to create the hardware from the specs. Perhaps in 20 years Stallman mused that the average person would be able to create hardware from the specs, but at the current time it wasn’t in the same category as free software from the point of view of the user. Even thought hardware increasingly is developed as software with </span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: #0066cc; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: #666666; line-height: 22.390625px;">Verilog</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.390625px;"> and other</span><span style="background-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: #666666; line-height: 22.390625px; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">hardware description languages</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.390625px;">, <strong>Stallman argued that that fact didn’t make much difference for the average user of the hardware</strong>. Therefore, he suggested that we use the term “hardware with published specifications”–certainly a mouthful compared to “free hardware” (or the taboo term “</span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.openhardware.net/">open hardware</a></em>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.390625px;"><em>“), but useful for provoking thought about the future of hardware development.</em>"</span> [emphasis added]
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Although the Free Software Foundation has certified some hardware as "respecting your freedom." So there's that.
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<a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom</a>
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